Autumn Equinox: Synchronous Time. Explore how you are one of the strands of a time web weaving infinite patterns of complexity, and each meeting with another shifts the trajectory of everything. Here is a framework and vocabulary about a truth many of us already know.
A horizontal rendering From the Gospels of Durrow, 7th century, Dublin, Trinity College, NYPL Digital Collections.
We know time is both linear (e.g., birth to death) and circular (e.g. days, years, seasons) in our perceptions. This Autumn Equinox we are exploring a third view of time: Synchronous Time. The words “synchronicity” or “synchronous” imply a time where different streams of Chronus (time) are “in sync” and fitting together from seemingly random directions. The idea of Synchronicity is that, invisible to us, an endless web of energy connects us and all things, and that we move along the thread of our existence continually intersecting the trajectories of other existences. Much of Celtic art seeks to express this interconnected weaving.
If synchronous time were mapped, it would be a web of all things moving, to and fro, strands connecting within infinite patterns of complexity, with constantly occurring conjunctions. Often we are aware of this interconnectedness.
Tele: How We are Aware of the Conjunctions
Jacob Moreno invented psychodrama, sociodrama, sociometry and Playback Theatre. He taught that we have a part of brain which allows us to perceive “across distance.” Moreno placed it in the left side of the limbic brain, and felt it probably developed when it was essential to recognize whether the person or creature on the horizon was friend or foe. He called this perceptive ability “Tele,” Greek for “across distance.” We use it in words like telephone, telepathy, telescope, telemetry, telephoto. Tele is operating when we enter a room crowded with unknown people. We can sense as we walk in and through it that we are attracted to some people, repelled by others, with many not registering either – a Tele of neutrality. The same awareness operates as we walk down a street, only now has a heightened sensing of safety or danger.
I think this part of the brain is probably the search engine for synchronous time, aware of the hidden web in which we are continuously moving. Synchronous time is a place of infinite potential. A moment of synchronicity is happening right now, always, for everything.
Moreno taught us that we will have a positive, negative or neutral reaction to these connections we encounter. When we observe our reactions we spontaneously strengthen the web, in a sense feeding energy into it through making positive interactions, and avoiding negative ones.
Tele encourages us towards or away from what is around us. Tele is a spontaneous, natural connection and we respond in a spirit of mutual exploration. He warned that if we were not spontaneous, we would not respond to the needs of the moment. We might respond from our cultural scripts, and objectify the other in order to try to control the encounter. These meetings in synchronous time are an equinox, balancing two equal energies.
Photo Credit: Alinda Grubnyak, Unsplash
My recent Lughnasadh blog featured poet Nils Peterson. Here is Nils’ description of synchronous connectivity.
Waking at Point No Point
look hard enough and everything turns theological
outside the frame of my window the further framing of a leaf-filled alder stretching long limbs across the window’s rectangle – in the left corner, a jut of pine – tops just clearing the plane of the waters of the Juan de Fuca Strait reaching across to the many-jagged silhouette of the Olympic Peninsula – sea a warm gray, the far shore gray-blue – sky filled with grays & blues and the slightest shading of gray pink. far over the water, white flashes of gulls twinkling like the first morning stars as they turn flapping gray color-of-the-water wings against white breasts – I sit up in bed – can hear water rush against the shore and the steady breath of my meditating wife – conscious of consciousness, mine yes – but also of the consciousness of the room I lie in, and the window, and the framing trees, the sea, the gulls, the far shore, the sky, the clouds – all conscious, all of us brooding – each a discrete field of brooding yet –everything aware of everything – maybe god is the awareness of all awarenesses widening and deepening, amused by what was created first – time. —Nils Peterson
“To be aware of all awarenesses” brings the connective web alive; we experience connection. Nils’ poem encourages understanding that everything around us is as aware of us as we are aware of it, probably more so. This is easy to understand about beings, but we believe even inanimate objects have tele because they are made, after all, of matter. We are attracted to a necklace, a tool; it’s more difficult for us to think about it being attracted to us, perhaps drawing our attention to it. Walt Disney movies often animate objects that sing and dance – my cups don’t do that, but things in my closet remind me that they are there, or a book falls off the shelf, at my feet, open to a page that offers needed information. It’s about connection, being aware of offers, often experienced as a nudge or a call towards or away from whatever is before us.
Nudges, Calls
If we read a romance novel, the hero and heroine are often at odds at the beginning, except both notice the other (call) and continuously think about them (nudge). This works in novels because the same thing happens in our lives. We watch a murder mystery or thriller and beg the heroine to not go in that room – the movie director has given us nudges as to what is coming, and we want the heroine to pay as much attention as we are to those warnings.
A nudge is defined as a light touch or push. We generally think of it as an external happening. In the synchronous world of tele connections, the nudge is internal: “I have a feeling,” “I had a thought about it.” These feelings or thoughts nudge us into action.
We’ll get a nudge to call someone. I’ve learned to follow these nudges, even if they seem to be coming out of nowhere and make no sense. People will say, “I can’t believe you called right now! I am…” and a story that needs to be told follows.
To take the bus to work in one corporation would have taken me three hours going and coming, so I drove. I would get in the car and check in with my internal navigation system about which of the various routes to take. I’d feel positively towards one and negatively towards another or they’d all seem neutral. The choice was experienced as a nudge… a push by a feeling. If I listened, I went home quickly; if I didn’t, I was often stuck in traffic. I expanded this transportation relationship to expecting a nudge for a parking space, and sure enough, there it would be. Now I’ll get a nudge to go or not go somewhere, and I listen.
I know people who have been taken advantage of by skilled scammers and other people with predatory behaviors. Often they say afterwards, “I should have listened to myself. I kept feeling something wasn’t right, but I’d talk myself out of it. The person seemed to be ….” It’s wise when we feel ourselves arguing with ourselves to stop it, and listen before we act.
What happens when we respond to nudges is they increase; the nudges become clear sooner, and our responses more skilled. And if we ignore them, they lessen and perhaps even stop. When we listen and respond we energize the web of connection.
What Energy do I Send and Receive
What if I send hate or love along the tissues of the web? With my neighbor is it Peace because of the roses we’ve appreciated in our gardens, or War because the height of the neighbor’s trees block my view or the roots clog my drains. What if we create a hundred million moments nudging towards a peaceful, plentiful, loving planet healing in her new configuration. What if it is up to us, each moment of every day. The encouragement to “Think Globally, Act Locally” can govern our daily interactions, connecting to the web of All-Being with our positive (or negative) energy. This is why prayer and intentions work – the message goes out on the web and strengthens the strands and connection points.
Trusting in the web and one’s tele, we can operate in a timeframe neither circular nor linear. For a person aware of synchronicity, time is a connector, bringing the elements that will conjoin at the right moment. The skill is in trusting the process.
A Recipe for Living in Synchronous Time
1) Stop pushing! The moment you discover you are trying to make something happen in linear time, don’t look at a clock. Listen to the resistance. Something needs to wait.
2) Put away your electronics unless alone. The electronic web is manipulated.
3) Be present! See, hear, feel, sense the tele signal at this moment of synchronicity.
4) In the moment of connection, practice being still and seeing/sensing what is seeing/sensing you. Practice how to approach without doing harm.
5) Be brave! Be generous! Whatever you are called to do, give your best.
That last one means is it’s up to you to spin into motion a strand of the web, short or long:
- Walking, you come across a limb that is lying across the path and move it. Because you took action, the teenager rushing down the bike path does not end up in the hospital.
- An opportunity to help out with an event leads to a lifelong relationship.
- Putting the seed in the ground you set in motion moments of sunshine and rain on the not yet hatched plant, food for insects arriving to pollinate, and flower or fruit for harvest. The natural world is created in cycles of synchronicities.
- At the store you are attracted to something, thinking “Oh, my friend would love this.” You buy it, take it to your friend, get invited in and help think through a major problem, which, when solved, unclogs the friend’s life and all those the problem touched.
Photo Credit: Beth MacDonald, Unsplash
Following Threads
What if the whole meaning of existence is tied into these moments on the web? What if nothing is an “accident,” as the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas suggested. What if there is an Infinite Design of Free Will, where at the moment we choose to engage or not, the web adjusts to our choice. In that reality we need to be awake, aware, to speak the words or do the act that must be done. What if one’s life is not a linear progression but a series of moments of opportunity when our action shifts the connective tissues of the planet in one way or another?
Christ’s journeys are a series of synchronous connections: Zacchaeus in the tree, the woman at the well, countless people by the side of the road where he walked. A person touches his robe and he stops, seeking the one seeking him. He models for us by example the importance of each junction – each meeting is a soul-to-soul connection. He never hesitates, he makes no judgment about the person’s presentation, place or religion. He teaches his disciples to do the same; some have a tough time learning the How.
Kuan Yin (Guanyin) is an eastern goddess of compassion. Her name means “one who perceives the sounds of the world,” and the sounds of the world are understood to be the cries of those who need help. She is aware of all things, listening for who needs help. She relieves suffering. In many depictions she has 1000 arms. Perhaps those arms are our threads, and, when we follow the nudges, we are mediators of the needs.
Kuan/Guan Yin is “Seated Guanyin Bodhisattva, Chinese, Liao Dynasty (907-1125).” Photographed by Kathleen Cain at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO. 2016.
If we are one thread of the interconnected web of life, the points of meeting are crossroads. It’s a fork in the road, with no obvious signposts. Awareness is critical. At a powwow a feather falls from a costume piece; everything stops, all say a prayer. The moment connects to others, and something changes, balance is restored, equinox achieved.
At a crossroads one pauses, observes clues, looks for indications. No interchange is idle. We touch another in every exchange. What if we put Christ’s way into each daily meeting, especially with those we never noticed before? The interconnected web would thrive, and the world would change. It is in synchronous time that the nudge comes to make the connection that needs to be made. We are Emergency Mercy Technicians, EMT’s of compassion.
I’ll close with a Rumi poem from Open Secret, translated by Coleman Barks. (permission granted for Spiritual Seasonings: A Life Recipe Book)
When one is united to the core of another,
To speak of that is to breathe the name “Hu”,
Empty of self and filled with love.
As the saying goes, “The pot drips what is in it.”
The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.
The onion smell of separation, crying.
Please let me know below in the comments or by email what you connected to in this blog. I’m hoping Synchronous Time at Equinox has been useful to you.
Questions for you to consider:
Are you aware of nudges and calls? How do you respond?
Have you experienced being a strand in the web of life, with connecting nodes, crossroads of opportunities?
Oh, Lola, such a lovely reflection on connection. I love your poetic voice!